AgriTalk After The Bell: Can Corn Acres Reach 89 Million Planted?

“At this point, I’m just about ready to say we won’t get to 89 million corn acres,” Jarod Creed, JC Marketing, told Chip Flory on Tuesday’s AgriTalk After the Bell.

As a reminder, USDA’s Prospective Plantings Report put total 2018 planted corn acres at 88 million acres, but many crop- and market watchers believe USDA’s planting intentions were too low. With corn planting intentions at 88 million and soybean plantings at 89 million, the 177 million combined left many analysts thinking there were 3 million to 4 million acres that could be added to the corn/soybean mix.

Creed explained that with only about 40% of the corn crop planted in the northern three crop districts in Iowa, there are roughly 3 million acres still “at risk” in the area.

Add in the unplanted and still-soggy areas of Minnesota and South Dakota, along with a weather forecast for rains in the upper Midwest this weekend, and Creed reasons it will be difficult to get those “add-on acres.”